Whilst the origins of modern samurai are contentious, it is believed that mounted warriors, archers and foot-soldiers in the sixth century that may have formed a proto-samurai.
Samurai was a term for the military nobility in The word 'samurai' is derived from the Japanese verb 'samorau', meaning 'to serve'.
Zen Buddhism spread among samurai in the 13th century and helped to shape their standards of conduct, particularly overcoming fear of death and killing, but among the general populace
Pure Land Buddhism was favored.
In the 14th century, a blacksmith called Masamune developed a two-layer structure of soft and hard steel for use in swords. This structure gave much improved cutting power and endurance, and the production technique led to Japanese swords (katana) being recognized as some of the most potent hand weapons of pre-industrial East Asia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai
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The Japanese process of folding the steel as part of the forge process as has been mentioned is similar to other technologies present in the European countries.
The technique for forging the Japanese blades produces blades of excellent quality when well taken care of and there are museum pieces today that have survived hundreds of years and are quite possibly still battle worthy. Although fold forging is an excellent process, it cannot produce blades capable of slicing machine gun barrels in half or cutting through tank armor! Japanese steel is good but it is still only steel, and will behave as such. (Side note: folding the blade only 10 times will produce a blade with more than 1000 layers of steel.)
http://ejmas.com/jwma/articles/2004/jwm ... e_1004.htm
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The
Sengoku jidai (warring-states period (1450-1600) was marked by the loosening of samurai culture with people born into other social strata sometimes making names for themselves as warriors and thus becoming de facto samurai. In this turbulent period, bushido ethics became important factors in controlling and maintaining public order.
Myth and reality
Most samurai (during the Edo period (1603-1867)) were bound by a strict code of honor called Bushido and were expected to set an example for those below them. A notable part of the Bushido code is seppuku, which allowed a disgraced samurai to regain his honor by passing into death, where samurai were still beholden to the rules of Bushido. However, the Bushido code was written in peace-time and it may not truly reflect the samurai's character as a warrior. Whilst there are many romanticized characterizations of samurai behavior, studies of Kobudo and traditional Budo indicate that the samurai were as practical on the battlefield as any other warrior.
Despite the Bushido, in practice, samurai could be disloyal and treacherous, cowardly, brave, or overly loyal. Samurai were usually loyal to their immediate superiors, who in turn allied themselves with higher lords. These loyalties to the higher lords often shifted; for example, the high lords allied under Toyotomi Hideyoshi were served by loyal samurai, but the feudal lords under them could shift their support to Tokugawa, taking their samurai with them. There were, however, also notable instances where samurai would be disloyal to their lord or daimyo, when loyalty to the emperor was seen to have supremacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai
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Bushido, then, is the code of moral principles which the samurai were required or instructed to observe. It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant. More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, possessing all the more the powerful sanction of veritable deed, and of a law written on the fleshly tablets of the heart. It was founded not on the creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single personage, however renowned. It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido
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[Yamaga Soko (1622-1685)] was a Confucian, and applied Confucius's idea of the "superior man" to the samurai class of Japan.
Yamaga wrote a series of works dealing with "the warrior’s creed" (bukyo) and "the way of the samurai" (shido). In this way he described the lofty mission of the warrior class and its attendant obligations, which later became known as the "Way of the Warrior" (bushido). He emphasized that the peaceful arts, letters, and history were essential to the intellectual discipline of the samurai. Yamaga thus symbolizes the historical transformation of the samurai class from a purely military aristocracy to one of increasing political and intellectual leadership. He also drew attention to the need to study and adopt Western weapons and tactics, as introduced by the Dutch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaga_Soko
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The 47 Ronin
…47 of them gathered on 14 December 1702 and, after donning the armor and taking up the weapons from the cache, they set out on their revenge on that same snowy night.
http://www.samurai-archives.com/ronin.html
The Revenge of the 47 Ronin continued to spark controversy throughout the Edo Period (1603-1867).
• [Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659 - 1719) argued] that Ôishi and his men had in fact erred in waiting as long as they had, that in so doing they risked Kira dying (he was, after all, over 60) and their efforts coming to naught.
• The Confucian scholar Sato Naotaka (1650-1719) criticized the ronin for taking action at all, as the shogun's decision to order Asano to commit suicide should have ended the matter there and then. He also shared Tsunetomo's belief that the ronin ought to have committed suicide at the Sengakuji once their deed was done. In giving themselves up to be judged, they appeared to have hoped to receive a light sentence and therefore continue living -a shameful objective, given their crimes. At the same time, Naotaka reserved his harshest words for Kira, whom he called a coward and whose precipitation of the whole affair had led to so many deaths.
• Asami Yasuda (1652-1711) defended the actions of the ronin as being appropriate (if not actually challenging the Bakufu's decisions)
http://www.samurai-archives.com/ronin.html
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[During the Meiji restoration (1866-1869)] the oligarchs also endeavored to abolish the four divisions of society.
…this led to a series of riots from disgruntled samurai. One of the major riots was the one led by Saigo Takamori, the Satsuma rebellion, which eventually turned into a civil war. This rebellion was however put down swiftly by the newly formed imperial army, trained in Western tactics and weapons, even though the core of the new army was the Tokyo Police force, which was formed in great parts of former samurai. This sent a strong message to the dissenting samurai that their time was indeed up. There were fewer subsequent samurai uprisings and the distinction became all but a name as the samurai joined the new society. The ideal of samurai military spirit lived on in romanticized form and was often used as propaganda during the Imperial Japan's early 20th century wars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration
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The Samurai were essentially hired guns or mercenaries, greatly glorified in the Meiji period as Japan sought to revalorize its past while becoming Europeanized.
Valorizing samurai as "knights" seems misguided…
Ken O’Neil